How do those championship hats arrive so soon?

February 7, 2005 12:33 AM

How the hell do they make those Super Bowl/World Series/Stanley Cup shirts and hats so quickly at the end of the game?

I watch very little sports on the telly, but the few pro sports series finales that I have seen (such as today) always have me asking this question at the end when everyone is celebrating. Like is there some kind of printing factory near the stadium that waits until the final seconds and then spits out out Patriots championship hats? Or do they play it safe and they make two kinds of superbowl champion shirts one Eagles, one Patriots? And if that's so what happens to the loser shirts? Do they go on ebay?

posted by sammich to clothing, beauty, & fashion (11 comments total)

They make sets with both teams on and sell the winning ones. The margins on merchandise of that sort more than covers the redundancy, particularly if you're first to market.

The losing shirts normally get (whatever the rag-trade equivalent of) pulped (is).
posted by benzo8 at 12:39 AM on February 7, 2005

For a mere $1 (US), I'm wearing a hat, shirt, pants, undershirt and boxers in honor of the Philly should have won, if not for the damn refs, Bowl victory.

I believe the New England shit is going for a tad more.
posted by swash at 2:37 AM on February 7, 2005

What I don't understand is why the shirts for the LOSING team aren't more popular. I bet there's got to be some sort of niche market for that sort of stuff. For instance, as I'm a Red Sox fan, I'd totally dig having a NY Yankees 2004 ALCS Champions T-shirt.
posted by alidarbac at 3:45 AM on February 7, 2005

For instance, as I'm a Red Sox fan, I'd totally dig having a NY Yankees 2004 ALCS Champions T-shirt.

That's funny... I would pay good money for an Red Sox ACLS 2003 T-Shirt for the opposite reason: because they shoulda' won. :)

Maybe there's a small industry for you there to get into: t-shirts of team championships that should have been. Like a Buffalo '66 Champions t-shirt or something. Licensing could be an issue.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:02 AM on February 7, 2005

I swear Bill Simmons mentioned in one of his columns last week that one of his most prized possesions is a "St. Louis Rams Superbowl XXVI Champions" t-shirt he bought right after they lost to the Patriots, so there's definetly some kind of market there.
posted by Cyrano at 6:26 AM on February 7, 2005

I wouldn't be surprised if there was an agreement between the teams NOT to sell the losing merchandise.
posted by xammerboy at 6:38 AM on February 7, 2005

The losing shirts normally get (whatever the rag-trade equivalent of) pulped (is).

I remember reading in a newspaper that the losing-team shirts sometimes get sent to third world countries as a tax writeoff for charity. So in some fetid mudhole somewhere you might see some 10-year-old herding water buffalo dressed in an "Eagles 2005 Super Bowl Champs" shirt.
posted by scratch at 7:11 AM on February 7, 2005

There was an article about this once.

They produce a "small" amount of merchandise for both teams, and then stand by and wait for the result - then they do a full run of the winner's merchandise as soon as they find out who it is.
posted by Jart at 8:03 AM on February 7, 2005

You can sometimes find them in those clothing liquidation places that crop up periodically in empty storefronts. As I'm an alum, my father-in-law grabbed me an Oregon T-shirt he found in one such place. He didn't even notice, but it was celebrating the Ducks basketball team making the "elite 8", when in fact they'd only made it to the "sweet 16" that year - kinda cool.

That's funny... I would pay good money for an Red Sox ACLS 2003 T-Shirt for the opposite reason: because they shoulda' won. :)

The Sox shouldn't have won in 03, and they shouldn't have won in '04 - and slightly off-topic, all my Yankee-hating co-workers look at me quizzically when I wonder why they aren't critical of the Pats winning 3 of the last 4 Super Bowls, since that was somehow an issue with the Yanks.... Of course, pre-Bledsoe you couldn't pay people to root for the Pats, so it's what I'd expect from fair weather fans.
posted by jalexei at 8:19 AM on February 7, 2005

To follow up on Jart's comment, here's an article about a company that waits for the outcome and immediately starts printing up the large quantities which are sold to the general public.

What really impressed me, though, is that within an hour (maybe even a half-hour; I don't remember exactly) one of the shopping channels was selling a woven tapestry which included the final score, and they were displaying the actual item.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:20 AM on February 7, 2005

I work for a company that produces stuff for the biggest sporting event of the year in this country (Australia). We have to assume both teams win and produce components for two. We are under fairly strict instructions to destroy any of the losing team's product but a few still manage to slip through. One (poorly photocopied) pirate turned up at a market a while ago. It's great to take the bits to a Grand Final BBQ and show the punters. I burn the loser's stuff in the fire. Its a licensing thing.
posted by Bdave at 9:06 PM on February 8, 2005